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Summary of the impact

Research at Oxford's International Migration Institute (IMI) on the
driving forces of global migration processes, conducted in conversation
with international stakeholder groups, has significantly affected the ways
in which migration is conceptualised and viewed by experts, international
organisations and governments involved in formulating migration and
development policies. The new perspective arising from IMI's research
fundamentally challenges the common assumption that migration is driven by
poverty and distress, and holds that migration is in fact an integral part
of the process of human and economic development. This view was adopted by
the United Nations in the UNDP Human Development Report 2009 and
has significantly influenced the UK government's Foresight report on
Migration and Global Environmental Change.

Underpinning research

The IMI (www.imi.ox.ac.uk),
established by Stephen Castles in 2006, led by Robin Cohen 2009-11 and now
led by Oliver Bakewell and Hein de Haas, has implemented a research
programme that has systematically explored relationships between migration
and broader processes of globalisation and human and economic development
in origin and destination countries [see Section 3: R1, R2, R5].
Empirical and conceptual research conducted as part of IMI's African
Migration programme, as well as the Determinants of
International Migration (DEMIG) (2010-14), Theorizing the
Evolution of European Migration Systems (2010-13), Imagining
Europe from the Outside (2010-13) and Global Migration Futures
(GMF) (2009-13) projects, has contributed to a shift in the way
migration is conceptualised to being positively related to broader
processes of development and social transformation rather than a `problem
to be solved' [R2]. Governmental and non-governmental stakeholders
in the GMF project have helped to guide the Oxford research into how
future processes of socioeconomic, political, cultural, technological, and
environmental transformation will affect migration.

In particular, IMI research has challenged common assumptions that
international (particularly `South-North') migration is primarily driven
by underdevelopment, poverty, and other forms of distress. IMI researchers
have found that a minimum level of capability (ie resources, skills,
networks etc) and aspiration is necessary for migration to occur.
Consequently, the poorest often migrate less and, paradoxically, processes
of human and economic development typically lead to increased migration [R4].
These assumptions also underlie the common notion that climate change and
environmental stress will lead to mass migration. IMI research has
highlighted that environmental disruption and poverty are actually more
likely to undermine people's ability to migrate [R6] and, again
paradoxically, that migration can actually help people to cope
successfully with external stresses by providing alternative income
sources [R2, R3].

IMI's GMF project has introduced these important theoretical insights to
the policy world by applying them within a new Migration Scenario
Methodology that has been adapted from the business sector and transformed
into both an exploratory and participatory research methodology. It
engages a wide range of migration experts and stakeholders (from
government, international organisations, NGOs and the private sector) to
reflect critically on the drivers of past change, on factors that are
reasonably certain to change in the future, and on factors that are
uncertain for the future but which may have a profound influence on
international migration [R7]. IMI's Migration Scenario Methodology
has been highly successful, being adopted by governments, academic
institutions and NGOs in Europe, North Africa, the Horn of Africa and the
Pacific to study how future development processes will affect migration in
often rather non-intuitive ways. The innovation of this approach lies in
the direct application of new theoretical insights on the drivers of
migration generated by other IMI research projects during the
scenario-building process. Sharing these insights facilitates stakeholder
learning and network-building, and the identification of new research and
policy insights about future international migration takes place during
the scenario- building process.

Most migration futures work has been based on linear extrapolations of
recent and more certain trends. However, future changes are highly
unlikely to follow such linear patterns due to the uncertainty of external
economic, political and social factors. The identification of key future
migration drivers in a highly uncertain context informs the development of
GMF's migration scenarios, which push experts and stakeholders to think
longer-term and to change their visions of future economic, social,
political and demographic trends affecting migration. By making
governments aware that migration changes may occur in unexpected and
counterintuitive ways, the process equips them to design migration
policies that can increase the benefits and reduce the costs of migration.
IMI has facilitated four workshops with policy-makers using this
methodology in order to ensure a dynamic interaction between researchers
and users. The first two were initiated by IMI using project funds; the
last two were held in response to demand for IMI's methodology (see
Section 4).

References to the research

[R2] Bakewell, O (2008) `Keeping Them in Their Place: The
Ambivalent Relationship between Development and Migration in Africa'. Third
World Quarterly 29 (7): 1341-58. (Impact factor 0.705; citations:
70.)

Details of the impact

Human mobility and development

IMI research on the reciprocal links between migration and development
has significantly affected the ways in which migration is conceptualised
and viewed by academics, international organisations, and governments
involved in developing migration and development policies. As a result of
this work, IMI researchers were asked to join the advisory board and
provide two crucial background papers [R8, R9] for the UNDP's Human
Development Report 2009. Overcoming Barriers: Human Mobility and
Development. IMI's research played a major role in influencing the
conceptualisation of human mobility in the report (see acknowledgement p.
vii), which called for extensive policy reforms to maximise the potential
development benefits of migration. Its critique of the concept of
South-South migration was important in UNDP's decision to revise the
categories it used for the Human Development Index [see Section 5: C1,
p 204]. IMI's input contributed to the view in the report [C2]
that migration should be conceptualised as a human freedom or capability
(Section 1.3 in particular reflects the views expressed in [R8]),
that migration is an intrinsic part of broader processes of human
development, and that such development processes generally lead to higher
levels of migration and mobility, rather than the conventional wisdom that
development will lead to less migration (for instance p 24, including
footnotes 9 and 10).

On the basis of this research on migration and development [R2, R9],
Oliver Bakewell was invited to attend and prepare a background paper for
the European Commission roundtable on `The Role of Migration in
Development Strategies' held in Brussels on 30 January 2013, as part of
the EU's preparations for the UN High-level Dialogue on Migration and
Development. He emphasised two particular issues that need to be
addressed: (i) improving the understanding of the relationship between
urbanisation and migration; and, (ii) reworking the conception of
development to take account of mobility. These points were both picked up
in the subsequent European Commission Communication [C3, pp 3, 9, and
14] that set out the common position of the EU and member states at
the High-level Dialogue and proposed future directions for the EU's work
on migration and development [C4].

Migration and global environmental change

In 2012, IMI's new research insights, put forward during a project
workshop and through a commissioned background paper [C6], had a
significant influence on the UK government's Foresight report on
Migration and Environmental Change[C5]. The Foresight
report is widely recognised as an agenda-setting publication in its field
that has changed the terms of the debate. This Foresight report was
ground-breaking in challenging conventional views on its topic, and
mitigating ideas that global warming will lead to massive international
migration. The IMI background study on the environmental and
non-environmental drivers of migration had a major influence on the main
report that led to new assessments of the effects of climate change and
environmental migration.

IMI research contributed to the development of this vision with its new
conceptualisation of migration and insight into how capabilities (as
defined above) impact climate-induced migration [C5, p 32, 62].IMI
countered the common view that environmental degradation will lead to
large- scale migration [C5, pp 9, 102] and stressed that the key
factors explaining the relationship between environmental stress and
migration are the vulnerability of people and their capability to adapt to
environmental change [C5, pp 2, 13]. A representative of the UK
government's Office for Science [C6] wrote in an email to Hein de
Haas: `Your views on climate change and migration have, as I hope you
know, already deeply influenced the Foresight report - for example, your
points on how those most affected by environmental change are often likely
to be those least likely to be able to cross international borders, and so
on.'

The new insights generated by IMI research into the links between
migration and broader development processes [R1, R8, R9] were
channelled towards larger audiences of practitioners and migration
policy-makers through the GMF project. The project's scenario-building
workshops in The Hague and Cairo involved more than 40 migration experts
and stakeholders from businesses, governments, and civil society across 17
countries in Europe, Africa, the Middle East, Oceania and America.
Representatives were present from prominent international organisations
such as the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), UNHCR, WHO,
the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, and the Global
Climate Adaptation Partnership as well as government officials.
Participants stated that the workshops and IMI's research insights helped
them to develop a more realistic and longer-term vision on migration
futures. This resulted in demand from governments and NGOs to apply the
IMI Migration Scenarios Methodology in other regions.

In 2012, the Regional Mixed Migration Secretariat (RMMS), a Nairobi-based
independent agency committed to promoting forward thinking and policy
development within the migration sector in the Horn of Africa and Yemen,
contracted IMI to apply the scenario approach to the Horn of Africa. It
recognised that future migration within the region was likely to be
affected by many factors that remained very uncertain and felt that a
scenarios workshop could introduce valuable new insights to those
designing policy [C7]. Also in 2012, a report on Pacific migration
prepared for New Zealand's Department of Labour and Australia's Department
of Immigration and Citizenship recommended working with IMI in its
conclusions: `Our understanding of the changing Pacific migration trends
can be enhanced through further research especially the use of futures
scenario based modelling developed by the Oxford University-based
International Migration Institute' [C8 p ix; see also pp 5, 84-6].
As a result, the Australian and New Zealand governments, with support from
UNESCO, sponsored a scenarios exercise run by IMI.

Both workshops included a broad range of experts and stakeholders,
including senior government officials, business people and representatives
from international organisations and civil society from across the
regions. This commitment of funds and time from senior staff is evidence
of the value placed on IMI's scenario approach. One participant at the
Pacific workshop held in Auckland in October 2012 commented, `I learnt so
much from the Scenarios planning, and have certainly applied some of the
techniques ... in some of my practical problem-solving with Pacific
counterparts and New Zealand employers over the last few months here in
the RSE [Recognised Seasonal Employer scheme]'. [C9]

The project has also generated many requests for the researchers to talk
to civil servants and policy-makers about the innovative scenario
methodology (particularly because of its unconventional methodological
focus on the systematic exploration of uncertain factors affecting current
and future migration) and its use in examining and planning for future
migration. Simona Vezzoli has been invited for the past three years to
teach scenario-building at an annual International Labour Organisation
(ILO) workshop in Turin, attended by civil servants; she has also been
asked by IOM to review their Migration and Development teaching modules
for practitioners, which will be reported back to the High-level Dialogue
on Migration and Development, General Assembly 2013. In May 2013, the EU
presidency invited Hein de Haas to present insights from the GMF project
at the European Migration Network (EMN) Annual Conference 2013.

[C4] International Cooperation Officer, Migration and Asylum
Sector, European Commission, Directorate-General for Development and
Cooperation: will corroborate the contribution of IMI to the European
Commission communication.